A YEAR WITHOUT RENT, PART 4

When I was a kid, one of my father’s favorite sayings was, “why don’t you play in the road?” He had two sons close in age who were active and rambunctious and it wasn’t a particularly large house, so any excuse to get us where we could be neither seen nor heard was a good one. And in his defense, it was a pretty quiet country road, so the danger was minimal.

I think of this sometimes when I’m on set and a particularly non-essential person is, to put it nicely, in the way. For the sake of simplicity, let’s call this person a “producer.”

I put it in quotes because across the indie film world there are hundreds of fantastic producers who work their asses off to turn a director’s vision into reality. They’re the first ones to show up and the last ones to leave, and they do things like sending out call sheets from their sister’s wedding reception two time zones away. If you find one of those producers, hang on to them for dear life because someone will try and steal them away from you.

And then there are “producers,” the type of people who argue with the Art Department over the need of a $3 prop, who sit in a walkway playing video games on their iPad, who ask the DP questions like, “are the number of people in the room affecting the light?” and generally just shouldn’t be on set. And I don’t mean “shouldn’t be on set” in the sense that they don’t really serve a purpose. I mean it in the sense that they slow things down. They’re in the way and more or less a destructive force. They should no more be on set than your crazy uncle who will eat all the craft services and make lewd advances toward your actresses…Unless, of course, that crazy uncle is one of your actors, but that’s a different article.

Often the rationale is that said “producer” was pretty valuable behind a desk, organizing things and dealing with paperwork, and that may very well be true, but it doesn’t mean they need to be crammed behind the monitor in a tiny room, taking up the very space where the sound guy needs to stand. If they’re good behind the desk, maybe they should stay behind the desk. You don’t ask your gaffer to fill out SAG paperwork. No, you let the gaffer do his job, and if you’ve got a really good one, you stay the hell out of his way. Your job as a producer is to make the crew’s job easier whenever you can. Get them what they need and let them make you look good.

If nothing else, a community should weed out the people who aren’t worth a damn, because few things are worse than getting saddled with a headache someone else could have warned you about but didn’t in the interest of being “nice.” Life is too short (and productions are too difficult) for that. Directors will often talk to each other about which actors were difficult to work with and which were a delight. There’s no reason that shouldn’t expand into other areas.

Of course, that was only a small part of our fourth month. It just kind of sucked all the air out of the room. It’s a shame, because that was a project with a terrific crew that did some really fantastic things, like turning an on-going prop into a type of diffusion, simply because the DP liked the different look it gave the light. It was kind of a brilliant move, actually, as it’ll give the film a unique look that’s not only cool but cool in a way that fits the narrative.

In San Francisco, I worked on the very first film we scheduled — Sean Gillane’s CXL — and spent a day on a green screen soundstage. The big takeaway being that when an actor complains about doing green screen work, believe them. It’s, by definition, tedious, tedious work where you’ll very often find yourself interacting with a piece of tape on the end of a metal pole, having no context of what the hell is going on around you. It’s hard to see how that could even be a situation where one might be able to turn in a good performance. How do you find the humanity of your character in that situation? It gives new appreciation for how hard an actor’s job can be sometimes. Because the audience won’t care that you were slightly lifeless because you were talking to tape. They’ll just see the lifeless part.

Thankfully for CXL (and actor Cole Smith), that was only part of the production. We got to shoot real world footage near where they shot the Golden Gate Bridge scene in Vertigo and in the neighborhood around Sean Gillane’s apartment.

We also shot in Sean’s apartment, which is something a director generally doesn’t want to do, if not for his sake then the sake of the people living with him. Living with a director in production is a bit of a nightmare. Gary King once joked that we should start a support group for the significant others of filmmakers called “It Never Really Gets Better.” Add to that the hell of living in the production, with all the gear all scattered around and in the way and your bed being used to shoot a sex scene at 2 a.m. after you’ve been at work all day, and it’s amazing that any relationships survive such shoots. A tip: put your significant other up in a hotel or something. It’s worth it. That’s what Sean did. Well, actually his better half decided this was a really convenient time to visit family members and friends out of town.

I’m now through four months (or is it five?) and the fatigue is starting to pile up. I started writing this article in Oregon (or maybe it was San Francisco?) two weeks ago (or three?) and I’m just now finishing it on a plane from Seattle to London. A plane that I thought left yesterday. I even showed up at the airport yesterday, ready to fly, only to discover that it wasn’t the right day. Turns out that not only did I have no idea what day of the month it was, I had the day of the week wrong too. Really, I’ve started to lose all perspective of time and place. On Favor (which we’ll get to in the next article), we had the sponsorship of Vuka Energy drink, and used a lot of soft lights for lighting. Cut to days later and I’m back in San Francisco to pick up again with the CXL production. I’m at the craft services table for five minutes looking for Vuka then can’t figure out what happened to the china ball. It’s all a blur. I’ve gone through multiple layers of exhaustion. My back has given up on hurting from sleeping on couches. My hair is going gray a lot quicker than it used to.

I have vague memories of productions in Maine and New York and Minnesota and even recent ones in Seattle. It feels like I’ve been doing this for years, not months. And I’m not even to the half-way mark.

I know what you’re thinking: didn’t I realize it would be like this? Sure. But there’s a difference between knowing something and experiencing it. College football players talk about how much faster things will move in the NFL, and yet they’re always surprised to find just how big the difference is. This is easily the most tired I’ve ever been in my life. Is it worth it so far? Absolutely. But I’m still really fucking tired.

It’s a good tired. But tired is tired. What time zone is this?

Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Jared

Is anyone else sick of these self-aggrandizing Year Without Rent updates? This Lucas guy drops names like we’re all supposed to know who “Gary King” and “Sean Gillette” are, and now he complains about “producers” i.e. the friends with jobs who pay for these productions?

It’s all just an obvious stab on Lucas’s part at portraying himself as some kind of Hollywood player.

The internet is so full of false prophets and charlatans dressed as experts, that it’s dismaying to see their likes infest what used to be a valuable resource for independent film.That’s all.

http://www.facebook.com/rjpurves Richard Purves

Jealous much Jared? I guess it’s just easier for you to sit behind your keyboard than to go out and actually do. Haters gotta hate I guess.

Lucas is a shameless self-promoter. He has a reputation for it… just google him. but the same is true of a lot of these indie film folks. They all take turns propping each other up with false praise and tit-for-tat reviews of each others work. It makes finding real talent near impossible.For example, After hearing Lucas McNelly brag for the umpteenth time about how “critics” called his movie a “masterpiece” I did a little digging……. turns out, there’s only one mention of it being a masterpiece, but two ‘masterpieces’ linked to Lucas……Here’s Pericles Lewnes reviewing Lucas McNelly’s movie, Blanc de Blanc:”mysterious masterpiece”And here’s Lucas McNelly reviewing Pericles Lewnes’ movie, Loop:”mind-bending masterpiece”… grain of salt anyone?
According to themselves, they’re ALL MAKING MASTERPIECES!!!!
and yet, no film festival will touch these things with a ten foot boom pole………..

The Spam Dodger

to be fair, Lucas does qualify his bragging by saying something along the lines of ‘the guy who called my movie a masterpiece was drunk’ but i agree, it’s still a d-bag move to boast about it, especially without revealing the *anonymous* source of your pull quote, as well as your mutually-beneficial association with its originator.

as someone who is only vaguely familiar with this whole Year Without Rent campaign via Filmmaker, i’ve got nothing personal against Lucas. his updates are generally interesting to read, and i wish him all the best with whatever is left of his Year.

regarding his actual film work, i will heed the advice of his anonymous critics and take the so-called reviews with a grain of salt ;-)

http://twitter.com/shackett Sean Hackett

Why shouldn’t writers/directors have a direct connection to their audience? For years it’s been actors that are the only resource to promote movies … now that is changing.

If you don’t like Lucas you don’t have to listen to him. Or me. Or anyone. But why hurt someone who is speaking, trying to get a project that they put time and effort in to be seen? Or others projects to be seen for that matter?

Most of the writers in LA and NYC that I know that are “making it” are making it happen for themselves. Communities like Portland and Austin are all about networking amongst each other in hopes that it can springboard their next project to Sundance or a large-ish festival. You have to have talent (agreed) but you have to be a viscous promoter of yourself. Chaos Digs Confidence is a little motto of mine. Fairy Godmothers don’t exist to promote you because you’re a good writer / good person. You have to keep swimming and get people to eyeball your stuff. You have to do a ton of groundwork to get noticed – especially in DIYland.

Is DIYland filmmaking mainstream. Nope. Is it even Sundance-y. Not usually. Genre is all over this little sandbox. I like Gary King a lot. The dude has fans and drive and makes things that I want to be made. He has internet presence and is a great person to know if you ever have a campaign.

I think a lot of films never get seen because there isn’t a drive for marketing. I know a 4 million dollar film that fewer people have seen than Lucas’s Blanc de Blanc. As a person who has had Lucas visit me , I can tell you his film is not about LUCAS … he literally has no footage of himself and focuses on the filmmakers. To the point that I’m pissed that all of the photos of me make me look fat.

Hanloncarol

lol we’re all making masterpieces! anyone can be a critic in this day and age, just like anyone can be a director. so everyone’s opinion is equally important.

i haven’t seen blac de blanc, but i’m sure it’s not as awful as everyone makes it out to be. then again, i’m sure it’s not quite a “masterpiece” / as good as the people who know lucas say it is…

the point is, these movies don’t get in to film festivals for a reason, and i doubt it’s because of politics or whatever. if the best review Lucas Mcnelly can get is from his friend (who btw he kept ANONYMOUS just like all the internet haters he hates…. hmmm) then that should tell you something…

(P.S. and so what if they both made masterpieces? is that so wrong? maybe they’re both geniuses and the only ones who are smart enough to realize it are each other… LOL!)

http://twitter.com/momentsoffilm Leilani Holmes

I think what people don’t realise, and why this A Year Without Rent project is so valuable is, that making films on very limited budgets and without enough resources and help is exhaustingly difficult and only a handful of filmmakers ever end up fully realising the product they set out to make. One in a couple of hundred thousand will however accidentally do something right and exceed themselves and the rest.. well all we can do is learn and grow as we create. And on limited resources we learn from each other and from our own experience which can sometimes be frustrating. However, by highlighting what is working for filmmakers and what isn’t on a broad scale, like this project does, we are given an insight into the world of independent film that I don’t believe anyone has ever shown before. Independent film, whether you like it or not, is the primordial sludge that all mainstream film waves come from. It’s messy to be sure but we can avoid some of the stickier bits and veer more toward finding new ways to create more incredible product if we can learn from what other filmmakers are doing. If indie film is incestuous then it’s because there really is no support for it other than that which we give each other. But if we can talk about how independent film is being made in the larger sphere of filmmaking then perhaps, just perhaps that isolation can change.

Audi Ble

well creating a beautiful film is really hard especially, if the budget is limited. And i admire how they’re created this. Thanks for sharing..